Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Good Times, Bad Times

By PaulyHollyweird, CA

I had a conference call yesterday. It was bittersweet news for me. Good times. Bad Times. Looks like one project will be coming to a close. Bad times is no more gravy train. Good news... I was offered up the potential to delve into a new project and that's something I have to think about over the next few days. I have two drives to/from the desert over the next week and I'm sure that will be something I wrestle with internally as we speed through bat country and I talk to some of my closest friends who have become my artistic advisers.

Of course, with the old project ending, the gaps in my hectic schedule would allow myself to complete and strengthen older projects. That's good news, but alas, the older projects are personal and don't pay. That's bad news.

I mean, manuscripts on spec... are just that. I'm writing stuff with the hopes that I can sell it at a future date to a bunch of suits who have no concept of art which they often have to have spoon fed to them.

I'm a gambler and I'll have to make a decision soon. Will I be bogged down in the first part of 2009 working on spec? Or do I take a paycheck and work on new projects with old clients?

The industry where I work is always changing. Every few months there's a shakeup and restructuring of things. Friends are jumping jobs. Some are getting promotions. Other demotions. And I know a couple of folks who just fuck up every opportunity they get, yet they are still a round.

I always told friends of mine to stick up for themselves in this brutal industry but at the same time, don't burn bridges because the industry is small and you never know what douchebag we loathe might be in charge in some other project down the line. The poker media is a business with lots of revolving doors and I've been extremely careful and exhibited a lot of restraint especially because a lot of the peers are simply scensters and inbred dipshits.

Well, maybe the time has come for me to just let loose and not give a shit anymore and start calling people out for being crooks and assholes and incompetent nits. Ah, but why rock the boat? I have a good thing going so I might as well focus on what I've been doing... entertaining the masses... something that I seem to do well.

Now if we can just expand that concept and instead of half-baked blog posts, I'll be able to do that same sort of entertaining in the form of a mass-market paperback or a motion picture. It's one thing to be a big fish in a little pond, and it's something totally different to be a piece of plankton floating around in a massive ocean ready to get gobbled up by a friggin' sardine.

Anyway... times are a changin' and I'm trying to spin it in a positive way. More free time for my projects. I wanted 2009 to be the year when I made some serious changes and they way things are falling into place the last couple of days, the path ahead of me is getting more and more clear.

There is a road out and I'm on that path. Just a little more time and I'll be in a new dimension.